English
" In the 30th verse of the same hymn we read: "Breathing lies the quick-moving life, heaving, yet firm, in the midst of its abodes. The living one walks through the powers of the dead : the immortal is the brother of the mortal." Sometimes when these oracular sayings have been pronounced, the poet claims his due. " One who had eyes," he says, " saw it ; the blind will not understand it. A poet, who is a boy, he has perceived it ; he who understands it will be the father of his father." In the same hymn one verse occurs which boldly declares the existence of but one Divine Being, though invoked under different names. (Rv. i. 164. 46.) "They call (him) Indra, Mitra, Varuna, Agni; then he is the well- winged heavenly Garutmat} that which is One the wise call it many ways ; they call it Agni, Yama, MlLtari6van." Many of these verses have been incorporated in the Upanishads, and are there explained by later sophists who wish to represent them as a guarantee for tlie scholastic doctrines of the Ved^nta philosophy. It was in the Upanishads and in the Siitras of Yy&sa that most Sanskrit scholars became first acquainted with these quotations from the Veda, and hence, even after they had been discovered in their original place in the hymns of the Rig-Veda-sanhitA, a prejudice remained against their antiquity. The ideas which they ex- 568 HTMN TO THE SUPREME GOD. pressed were supposed to be of too abstract a nature for the uneducated poets of the Yedic age. I am far from defending the opinion of those who main- tained the existence of a school of priests and philo- sophers in the remotest ages of the world, and who discovered the deepest wisdom in the religious mys- teries and mythological traditions of the East. But the reaction which these extravagant theories has pro- duced goes too far, if every thought which touches on the problems of philosophy is to be marked indis- criminately as a modem forgery, if every conception which reminds us of Moses, Plato, or the Apostles, is to be put down as necessarily borrowed from Jewish, Greek or Christian sources, and foisted thence into the collections of the ancient poetry of the Hindus. There is what Leibnitz called perennis qtuBdam philosophia^ a search after truth- which was not con- lined to the schools of priests or philosophers. Its language, no doubt, is less exact than that of an Aristotle, its tenets are vague, and the light which it sheds on the dark depths of human thought resembles more the sheet-lightning of a sombre evening, than the bright rays of a cloudless sunrise. Yet there is much to be learnt by the historian and the philosopher from these ancient guesses at truth; and we should not deprive ourselves of the new sources which have so unexpectedly been opened for studying the his- tory of man, fearful and wonderful as his structure, by casting wanton doubts on all that conflicts with our own previous conclusions. I add only one more hymn, in which the idea of one God is expressed with such power and decision, that it will make us hesitate before we deny to the Aryan nations an instinctive Monotheism. (Rv x. 121.) HTBIN TO THE SUPBBME GOD. 569 " In the beginning* there arose the Source of golden light — He was the only bom Lord of all that is. He stablished the earth, and this sky;— i Who is the God to whom we shall offer our sacrifice ? He who gives life, He who gives strength ; whose blessing all the bright gods desire ; whose shadow is immortality; whose shadow is death; — Who is the God to whom we shall offer our sacrifice ? He who through His power is the only King of the breathing and awakening world; — He who go- verns all, man and beast ; — Who is the God to whom we shall offer our sacrifice ? He whose power these snowy mountains, whose power the sea proclaims, with the distant river — He whose these regions are as it were His two arms; — Who is the God to whom we shall offer our sacrifice? He through whom the sky is bright and the earth firm — He through whom the heaven was stablished — nay, the highest heaven — He who measured out the light in the air; — Who is the God to whom we shall offer our sacrifice ? He to whom heaven and earth, standing firm by His will, look up, trembling inwardly — He over whom the rising sun shines forth ; — Who is the God to whom we shall offer our sacrifice ? Wherever the mighty water-clouds went, where they placed the seed and lit the fire, thence arose He who is the only life of the bright gods; — Who is the God to whom we shall offer our sacrifice ? He who by His might looked even over the water- clouds, the clouds which gave strength and lit the sa- crifice. He who is God above all gods; — Who is the God to whom we shall offer our sacrifice ? May He not destroy us — He the creator of the pp 570 DATE OF THE CHHANDAS PEBIOD. earth ; or He, the righteous, who created the heaven; He who also created the bright and mighty waters;— Who is the God to whom we shall offer our sacrifice?" There is nothing to prove that this hymn is of a particularly ancient date. On the contrary, there are expressions in it, especially the name of Hiran- yagarbha, which seem to belong to a later age. But even if we assign the lowest possible date to this and similar hymns, certain it is that they existed during the Mantra period, and before the composition of the Brilhmanas ; certain it is that every verse and every syllable was counted in the Anukramanis of the Siitra period. With our received notions on the history of the human mind it may be difficult to account for facts like these ; but fkcts must not be made to evaporate in order to maintain a theory. The difficulty, such as it is, will be felt by all who think seriously and honestly on these problems. But it is better to state this difficulty than to conceal it. Even if we assign all philosophical hymns to the last years of the Mantra period, we have to account, in the 9th century B.C., for thoughts which, like the stems of forest trees, disclose circles within circles, almost impossible to count. There are hymns which are decidedly modern if compared with others: but if the most modem be ascribed to the Man- tra period, what must be the date of the earliest relics of the Chhandas age ? There can be little doubt, for instance, that the 90th hymn ^ of the 10th book, a hymn which is likewise found in the 31st 1 A very careful discussion on this hymn, together with its text, translation, various readings and notes^ is to be found in Dr. John Muir's " Original Sanskrit Texts," pp. 6—11. DATS OF THE CHHAKDAS FEBIOD. 571 book of the VAjasaneyi-sanhitA, and in the 19th book of the Atharva-veda, is modern both in its character and in its diction. It is full of allusions to the sacrificial ceremonials, it uses technical philoso- phical terms, it mentions the three seasons in the order of Yasanta, spring, Gnshma, summer, and ' iSarad, autumn ; it contains the only passage in the Rig-veda where the four castes are enumerated. The evidence of language for the modem date of this composition is equally strong. Grtshma, for instance, the name for the hot season, does not occur in any other hymn of the Rig-veda; and Yasanta also, the name of spring, does not belong to the earliest vocabulary of the Yedic poets. It occurs but once more in the Rig-veda x. 161. 4., in a passage where {he three seasons are mentioned in the order of l^arad, autumn, Hemanta, winter, and Yasanta, spring. But in spite of all the indications of a modern date, this hymn, if our argument holds good, must have existed before the beginning of the Br^hmana period. I see no possibility how we could account for the allusions to it which occur in the Br^hmanas, or for its presence in the Sanhit&s of the Yajesaneyins and Atharvans, unless v we admit that this poem formed part of the final collection of the Rig-veda-sanhit&, the work of the Mantra period. There are no traces anywhere of hymns having been added after that collection was closed, except in the case of the Ehilas, and no secret is ever made as to their spurious character. Oriental scholars are frequently suspected of a desire to make the literature of the eastern nations' appear more ancient than it is. As to myself, I can truly say that nothing would be to me a more welcome discovery, nothing would remove 572 DATE OF THE CHHAKBAS FEBIOD.